Norfolk MP wants better personal finance education in schools

Jerome Mayhew says a good financial education is "a crucially important part of our lives"

An MP has called for a greater effort in schools to teach children about personal finance.

Jerome Mayhew, the Conservative MP for Broadland in Norfolk, told MPs that a good financial education was for many just "a middle class secret".

He revealed that a recent survey for Parliament suggested that 62% of young people had no recollection of being taught about finance in school.

The schools minister said financial education was part of the curriculum.

Mr Mayhew was previously a successful businessman, but he told Parliament that when growing up he was taught nothing about savings, pensions, mortgages or borrowing money.

And 40 years on he was horrified when over the summer his teenage children told him that they had also received no financial education.

"This is a real and present issue," Mr Mayhew told a special debate arguing that better financial education would help young people make better choices with their money - which could improve their mental health and even benefit the economy.

And he had a string of statistics to back-up his argument.

A Cambridge University Study had found that most money habits are embedded in a child by the age of seven.

"It is difficult to reverse those early learnt approaches later in life," said Mr Mayhew.

"If you haven't got it by the age of seven then you're already on the back foot."

Overstretched teachers

A survey by Santander suggested that 70% of adults said better financial education would have increased their ability to deal with the cost of living.

While a survey by the financial company GoHenry suggested that people who received financial education as a child saved 44% more into their pension every month than those who did not.

"There is a middle class secret to financial education," said Mr Mayhew. "Those who receive it at home get a huge leg-up through the rest of their lives... surely it is the job of state education to level up that deficit?"

He called for the government to raise the issue with schools, to provide more teaching materials and to encourage outside experts to come in to teach the subject.

Labour's Catherine McKinnell said people who were financially literate were more likely to have savings, avoid fraud and invest their money.

But she said a Bank of England survey suggested that two thirds of teachers said there was a lack of dedicated time for teaching the subject.

"A Labour government would ensure that [students] are taught properly by experts not over-stretched teachers," she added.

The Schools Minister Nick Gibb said that in 2022 just under half of 7-17 year olds received "meaningful financial education".

He said personal finance studies were supposed to feature in the maths curriculum and citizenship classes.

He said in some places banks had sent staff into schools to take classes.

"There had been some positive progress," he said. "But more needs to be done."